The Canopy Team is Growing!

As of this week, we have two new faces in the office: Francisco Ayala, our Case Manager and Rick Barry, our Employment Specialist. This week, we want to introduce you to Rick. Up until a couple days ago, he worked for the Department of Human Services in Benton County as an eligibility specialist for the SNAP program. In his interview with Canopy, he said he enjoyed being able to help people, but he felt he was pretty limited in what he could do. His caseload was so large that all he could do was interview people, input their information into the system and move on. He wanted to be able to have a more lasting impact on people’s lives.

That’s why the employment specialist position got him so excited. He saw this as an opportunity to provide people with perhaps the most impactful assistance possible: a job. Since starting work on Monday, he’s wasted no time: he’s already building a list of potential employers to contact, developing informational materials to share with these employers and working his way through a long list of online courses to get him up to speed on the refugee resettlement program.

We thought we’d give him the chance to introduce himself a little bit:

Hello everyone,

My name is Rick Barry and I am very excited to be joining Canopy NWA as Employment Specialist. While I am new to refugee resettlement, I have several years of experience working in the public and nonprofit sectors. My educational background is in Political Science and Philosophy, so Canopy will provide a fantastic opportunity to utilize all of my work and educational experience.

Much like those we will be working with here at Canopy, I am not a native of Arkansas, so I look forward to helping newcomers get acclimated and find quality employment. With that said, one of the easiest ways that you can help or volunteer is by referring businesses, big or small, that would like to give Arkansas' newest families a step toward self-sufficiency.